On 10 February 2013 a fire that started on one of the firm's two flexo presses ripped through Mono-Poly's Louth-based factory, destroying everything in its path.

Both the firm's presses, a CMS six-colour CI press and a Schiavi Sirio, were written off, together with a proofing machine, abatement plant, an SRC slitter-rewinder and a mass of cylinders, reels and other assorted parts and tools.

The factory itself also had to be pulled down to the foundations and rebuilt from the ground up.

The one silver lining was that the firm had moved nearly £750,000 worth of printing plates from its main unit into its office unit just weeks beforehand, in order to free up space for the Schiavi.

This unit was the only one of the three leased by the company to escape significant fire damage, meaning the plates, together with the company's computers, client records and - crucially - finished work, were all saved.

All told the damaged equipment cost £1.2m to replace, although this figure would have been higher had Mono-Poly not opted for secondhand presses rather than the new machines it was entitled to under its new-for-old insurance (the lead time for a new press was too long).

Plant manager Terry Barker, son of the company's owner and one of four family members working at Mono-Poly, described the following year as "the worst year of my life" but admits that the firm is now in a far better position for it.

"I remember saying to my wife immediately after the fire: that's me not having any work to do for the next six months," recalled Barker. "In fact, I don't think she saw me for about six months - you don't realise how much hard work it's going to be just to keep going and to hold onto your customers, around 99% of which are still with us."

Key to Mono-Poly's survival was an offer by MID Packaging to lease its CMS press - one of only two in the UK - to its Lincolnshire rival for the 40 odd hours a week that it wasn't using it.

"They had the sister machine to our six-colour press and were only using it on day shifts so they hired it out to us on the nights and the rest of the work we were able to farm out to companies we know and trust," said Barker.

There was one catch, however. "They are based in Halesowen, which is 138 miles away." Faced with no other option, Mono-Poly sent its printers to work - putting them up in hotels to spare them the 276 mile round-trip commute.

This was the new norm from the time of the fire until the arrival of the firm's first replacement press in July - a 2008 eight-colour Uteco Onyx gearless CI press with a width of 1,350mm and a long repeat of up to 1,100mm.

The Uteco was installed in a temporary unit neighbouring the old factory in Louth and Mono-Poly's printers were able to return home.

Other replacement kit soon followed, including a 1996 Schiavi Zodiac six-colour CI press and two Titan slitter-rewinders, together with a larger range of cylinder sizes for the two presses.

By December the firm's original factory had been rebuilt, with a few alterations. "We had the canteen and toilets rearranged and we had fire doors put in between the three units so we have internal access now where before you had to go outside and come back in," said Barker.

"Because we were a small company that had grown over time, things were crammed in here, there and everywhere in the old factory; thanks to the fire we've had the chance to plan things a bit more and lay things out how we should have done in the first place."

The result is that the workflow is now far more efficient, as is the main press - the Uteco - which not only has two extra colours but is also some 15 years or so younger than the CMS that so dramatically burst into flames.

The exact cause of the fire remains a mystery. The official report concluded that it was the result of a ceased bearing that heated up and ignited solvent vapours, although Barker said this doesn't tally with the reports of the printers running the machine when it caught fire.

"From what they described to me they first saw flames dancing across the top of the ink tray, which is the other end of the press from the bearing that the investigators said was the cause," said Barker.

"It sounded to me like something got sucked through the filter on the front of the intake for the heater, wrapped around the heating element, caught fire and dropped down into the ink tray.

"The intake is right above the ink tray and there's not a lot else there that could have caused a fire."

Whatever the cause, the result was inevitable once the ink tray - containing a highly flammable mix of ink and solvent - went up in flames.

Barker's advice to other printers is to go through their insurance with a fine toothcomb to ensure that there is adequate cover. "We were probably slightly under-insured for what we lost, but if we hadn't moved the plates a few weeks before we would have been in a lot worse position, because the plates wouldn't have been covered," he said.

"You tend to underestimate about what it would cost to replace things if you lost everything - we've looked a bit deeper because of what happened and what you find is it may only be a thousand pounds here and there that isn't insured, but when you start to add all those bits up soon enough you find you've got £200,000 that isn't covered."

Fully-covered and now ramping up production, Mono-Poly is anticipating a good year ahead thanks to its new plant and machinery. "We actually had a week's downtime in January when Uteco came out to commission the press and do all the checks on it and we still had a record sales month just off three weeks," said Barker.

"We've got the capability now to add another 50% to our turnover and we haven't even started advertising the fact we can do eight colour work now - we used to do a lot of bird seed packaging that we lost because it went from six to eight colours so that's one area we can target to bring back."